Legal Protection in the Context of International Exchange of Information upon Request between Tax Authorities

Countries are increasingly using the method of international exchange of information to share information about taxpay- ers between countries. Both in an EU and OECD context, the legal basis for such information exchange has been broad- ened significantly in recent years. However, the legal protec- tion for parties affected by such international information exchange does not seem to keep pace. In this article, we dis- cuss the legal protection against the exchange of information on request. We conclude that there is legal protection for information holders who are being ordered to exchange in- formation with their tax authority so that this tax authority can fulfil a request to exchange information with its local counterpart based on the EU administrative cooperation di- rective (DAC). If the information holder is also the taxpayer 76 being investigated by the requesting EU Member State, it is not clear whether legal protection exists. In situations where information is exchanged on non-DAC basis, like for example, based on a tax treaty or a tax information exchange agree- ment (TIEA), there is no case law that stipulates any legal protection. Against the actual exchange of information from a state to another state no minimum standard of legal pro- tection exists. Furthermore, we give a brief overview in this article of the legal protection according to Dutch law and give suggestions for a framework for legal protection